Humans and animals in urban space: Production of common spaces with street dogs in Eskişehir

This study aims to analyze the production process of spaces where street dogs are fed, shelter, taken care of and interact with humans. For the purpose of the thesis, theoretical framework is constructed by bringing together literatures related to neoliberal urbanism, commoning, especially discussions about commoning urban space and more-than-human commoning, and theories that conceptualize human and animals in a relational way, such as posthumanism, actor-network theories and new materialist feminisms. Within this framework, research is conducted to understand how, by whom and through which social relations more-than-human common urban spaces are produced. Within the scope of research, in depth interviews are conducted with humans who regularly take care of street dogs and develop ways of living together. The findings of the research are analyzed in themes of practices and relations that constitute more-than-human urban common spaces as well as (re)production process and boundaries of these spaces. This study considers spaces produced by humans and street dogs as common spaces and argues that these spaces can be considered as cases showing that it is possible produce cities where humans and animals live together and share the urban space.